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OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR
CONDEMNS MURDER OF RADIO ANNOUNCER AND EXPRESSES CONCERN OVER DISAPPEARANCE OF
JOURNALIST IN THE STATE OF SINALOA, MEXICO

Washington D.C., October 17, 2014. – The Office of
the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemns the murder of journalist and
activist Atilano Román Tirado, radio announcer at the station Fiesta
Mexicana 98.7 FM and community leader, which took place in the municipality
of Mazatlán, state of Sinaloa, México. The Office of the Special Rapporteur
expresses its concern and urges the Mexican authorities to take urgent action
to establish the motive of the crime and to activate all the legal instruments
available to identify and punish the perpetrators and masterminds behind this
crime.

According to the information received, on the
morning of October 11, Román Tirado was hosting his radio show ‘Así es mi tierra’, which airs on
Saturdays on the station Fiesta Mexicana of ABC Radio, when
strangers shot him inside the radio booth. The station is located inside the
headquarters of the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán. The activist died
after being taken to a hospital. Román Tirado acted the leader of a movement of
the community affected by the Picachos dam. The journalist regularly criticized
local authorities in his radio show and exposed the government’s breach of its
commitments to his community.

According
to the information received, the Office of the Special Public Prosecutor on
Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE) opened an inquiry on the events
and the prosecutorial federal police had reportedly acted on the case. For its
part, the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the State of Sinaloa was advancing
its investigations of the facts.

Additionally, the Office of the Special Rapporteur
expresses its concern over the disappearance of journalist Jesús Antonio Gamboa
Urías, which reportedly took place on October 10 in Ahome, also in the State of
Sinaloa. The Office of the Special Rapporteur calls on the Mexican State to
adopt all the necessary measures to find the journalist alive. In its
investigations, the State should not dismiss the hypothesis that the
disappearance could be related to the exercise of the journalist’s work.
According to the information received, the reporter is the director of
political magazine Nueva Prensa and
was last seen around midnight on October 10 in the business venue of one of his
siblings. The journalist’s family filed a complaint before the local
authorities on his disappearance. The information received indicates that the
car used by the reporter was not found and that he was not answering his phone.

Violence against journalists in Mexico has been of
particular concern to this Office. The Special Rapporteur urges the authorities
to thoroughly investigate the hypothesis that these crimes could have been
associated with the exercise of the victims’ right to freedom of expression or
their human rights defense work. Similarly, the Office of the Special
Rapporteur considers it essential to urgently assess whether the mechanisms of
change in jurisdiction should be activated so that these cases could be
investigated and prosecuted immediately by federal authorities. This Office
also considers it fundamental to consolidate the Mechanism to Protect Human
Rights Defenders and Journalists [Mecanismo de Protección para Personas
Defensoras de Derechos Humanos y Periodistas], and to strengthen the
interagency coordination mechanisms between federal authorities and the various
levels of government to ensure the proper adoption and implementation of
protection measures.

Principle 9 of the IACHR Declaration
of Principles on Freedom of Expressionstates:
"[t]he murder, kidnapping, intimidation of and/or threats to social
communicators, as well as the material destruction of communications media
violate the fundamental rights of individuals and strongly restrict freedom of
expression. It is the duty of the state to prevent and investigate such
occurrences, to punish their perpetrators and to ensure that victims receive
due compensation."

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of
Expression was created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
to encourage the defense of the right to freedom of thought and expression in
the hemisphere, given the fundamental role this right plays in consolidating
and developing the democratic system.